NYT Article on WTC Memorial Design Finalists, 2003

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

9-1 la'03 '

Coalition: Tests Show Air Still Bad Downtown By Margaret Ramirez STAFF WHITER Anger about air quality in lower Manhattan escalated yesterday as a coalition ofresidents, office workers and health esqjerts cited evidence that asbestos and other toxins remain inside buildings at dangerous levels. Robert Gulack, senior counsel for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said environmental testing by a private firm in January found asbestos in the stair­ well of the Woolworth Building, which is across from City Hall. The firm reported 267,500 asbestos struc­ tures per square centimeter, nearly 27 times the accept­ able federal level. Testing in March found more asb^- tos in an emergency stairwell used by SEC employees. During a news conference at Federal Hall, Gulack, who has suffered repeated attacks of bronchitis, be­ lieves the offices may have been recontaminated from dust that coated ffie exterior of the building and was not cleaned until this month. Last month, a report by the federal Environmental Protection Agency Inspector General found that the agency misl^ New Yorkers on health effects of the air after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Reacting to the report, Gulack called on the federal government to conduct a comprehensive cleanup effort, to protect workers from any further health effects. “They rushed us back into contaminated play­ grounds and schools and places of business. They took it upon themselves to decide what we would be told, and what might be too upsetting for us to know,” Gulack said. “All the areas impacted on Sept. 11 — in Manhat­ tan and in Brooklyn, in homes and in offices, on the inside of and on the outside of buildings — all of this must be, at long last, properly cleaned up. It is time for all of us to demand the cleanup that ought to have begun two years ago,” Gulack said. Last year, the EPA b^an a cleanup of residences near Ground Zero. But, several public officials criticized the plan as limited because schools and office buildings were not included. The EPA has said it is responsible for cleaning residential buildings south of Canal Street. Jo Polett, a lower Manhattan resident, said she ' was diagnosed witih reactive airways disease from World Trade Center dust in her apartment. She now takes four medications to treat her illness. “People are still being exposed right now,” she said. “The EPA needs to come back and address this. They just want this to go away. They don’t care what happens to people.”

NYC-WTC_000142927